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Summary of the impact

Anya 17 (an opera about human trafficking), first performed in
March 2012, generated wide
media and civil society attention. 13 UK and international
anti-trafficking campaigning groups
have endorsed the opera and used it to raise awareness and help leverage
their agenda to
change legislation. Third sector and media attention has taken the
research to a wider
community than just the original audience, winning recognition and
enabling follow-through of
various kinds. Collaboration, publicity and support from NGOs has enabled
Anya17 to further
its reach internationally, with performances in Romania, Germany, the UK
and the USA in the
near future creating opportunities for developing further impacts on opera
audiences,
campaigning organisations, wider civil society and government in Europe
and America.

Underpinning research

Anya17 is a one-act opera written to expose the world of sex
trafficking and slavery in the UK.
Its narrative revolves around four young women deceived and trafficked
from Eastern Europe,
and their struggle to survive. It aims to educate about the real lives
behind the trade in
humans, primarily for sexual slavery.

Principal research insights which relate to the impacts were:

The strong evidence of the potential to engage civil society
organisations, policy-makers
and their constituencies through the medium of opera, in ways that go
beyond
the normal use of high art simply as a means of fund-raising.

potential of the publicity surrounding the opera and its performances
in a relatively
niche context (live performance of contemporary music) to help raise
wider public
awareness of human trafficking was quickly understood by international
anti-trafficking
organisations, who found ways to use it to support their campaigns to
influence policy-makers
and make changes in UK law.

The effectiveness of uncompromisingly `contemporary' music in the form
of an opera
(rather than, for example, musical theatre) effectively to articulate a
highly emotive
`real-life' story on a topic never before tackled in the medium. This
was achieved by,
among other things, having young operatically-trained singer-actors, a
14-piece `pit-band'
carefully sored so as to allow audibility of text, and referencing of
Eastern and
Western European popular music idioms.

Research was undertaken from about December 2010 until February
2012 (libretto,
composition and orchestration); October 2011 until the première in early
March, 2012 (casting,
rehearsals, PR); March 2012-July 2013 (follow-up engagement with
campaigning groups and
promoters). It was premièred in a semi-staged version at Liverpool
Philharmonic Hall on 7
March 2012, where the 14-piece orchestra was the Royal Liverpool
Philharmonic's Ensemble
10/10; a second performance was given with a student orchestra at the RNCM
on 9 March
2012, as part of the New Music North West Festival. A variety of video
interviews with cast and
composer have been made, and the librettist created and manages a
burgeoning web-site that
includes social media, blogging, and press and media content (http://www.anya17.co.uk/).

Anya 17 received its first performances as part of the New Music
North West Festival,
established by the RNCM in 2002 as a week-long, biennial collaborative
celebration of
contemporary music by North West regional composers and ensembles. The
Festival is based
at the RNCM, although it always includes concerts in other venues and both
student and
professional ensembles, including the RLPO Ensemble 10/10 and the BBC
Philharmonic
Orchestra and BBC Radio 3. It is the largest festival of its kind outside
London and has built up
a wide following over the years since it started. The Festival provides a
platform for RNCM
composers and performers to research, develop and perform new works using
the resources
of the institution and its professional partners.

References to the research

2. Audio and video recordings of second performance of Anya 17
at RNCM, Concert Hall, 9
March 2012: Soloists from RNCM School of Opera, RNCM New Ensemble,
conductor, Clark
Rundell (CD and DVD see REF2). Further sound and video clips:
http://www.awaydaymusic.co.uk/opera/

• Arts Council England and British Council Strategic Touring Awards:
£5,000, for concert
performance on 17 October 2013 by National Opera of Timişoara with artists
from the
UK and Romania. PI: Professor Adam Gorb. Awarded 13.06.2013
(http://tinyurl.com/orhmp7a)

Details of the impact

The early stages of writing the opera included composer and librettist
consulting
representatives of 11 anti-trafficking organisations (principally City
Hearts, which also later
facilitated a meeting in sheltered housing between trafficking victims and
opera cast members).
These organisations gave valuable feedback to ensure that the content of
the opera was as
accurate as possible. Meanwhile, the wider potential of the opera to
effect change in public
attitudes was part of the agenda from the beginning.

A website, YouTube channel (3000 hits), and Facebook page (160 followers)
were set up.
Introductions to senior policy-makers were made through the offices of
Kaye's MP, Bob Walter,
who backed the project (http://tinyurl.com/qfabfsr)
and subsequently arranged a meeting
between librettist and composer, and the Immigration Minister, Damian
Green, at a reception
hosted by the Prime Minister at 10 Downing Street to mark Anti-Slavery
Day, 17 October 2011.
They also met other politicians and NGO leaders at the House of Lords,
including Sir Anthony
Steen, Chairman of the Human Trafficking Foundation. Representatives of
the UN Global
Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (UN GIFT) were quick to endorse the
project,
understanding its potential: Siria Gastelum, UN GIFT's Public Information
Officer, said: `We
commend this effort to engage and inspire the anti-trafficking community
while raising
awareness about human trafficking'. Tony Lloyd, MP for Central Manchester,
visited rehearsals
at the RNCM and recorded an interview (http://tinyurl.com/p2ht7e6),
in which he talked about
the potential for the opera to make an impact on people beyond `just
entertainment': `If it takes
things through to people who've not thought about these issues before,
it's an amazing
service... On the night the production goes live, there will be women
working on the streets of
Liverpool, Manchester, all our big cities ... this show is, in the end,
about making this stop'.
Further support was given by Catherine Bearder, MEP.

Media preview coverage picked up on the significance of the opera as a
way of discussing
wider issues. For example, a story by Glyn Mon Hughes trailing the
performances in The
Liverpool Daily Post on 1 March 2012 was run on its Arts pages on 4
March 2012
(http://tinyurl.com/o6c3rq2),
quoting statistics on trafficking and comments from the Director,
Caroline Clegg, about the meeting between the cast and victims of sex
trafficking. Two days
later, The Independent carried an article quoting Sir Jonathan
Miller, who said that `the project
showed no subject should be off-limits', and also Iqtadar Hasnain, a
spokesman for Anti-Slavery
International, who said `As far as we're aware, there has never been an
opera on this
subject. We hope that people will see it and realise that this is a form
of slavery that is
happening on their doorstep today'.

On 6 March, Liverpool Confidential (monthly unique visitors,
c.24,000; monthly page views,
c.50,000) ran an on-line story sub-headed `United Nations backs opera
about Europe's £20bn
dirty secret' (http://tinyurl.com/nme9jqj).
On the day of the Liverpool première, the mainstream
news programme, BBC North West tonight (live audience: c.500,000) felt
able to broadcast a
feature report (2' 17"), including rehearsal footage and interviews with
cast members, intercut
with an interview with Brenda Gardner of Stop the Traffik Campaign, in
which she talked about
the realities of human trafficking in Liverpool.

By the opening night, the following organisations had formally endorsed
the opera: Anti-Slavery
International; City Hearts; ECPAT UK; Human Trafficking Foundation; Purple
Teardrop
Campaign; The Salvation Army; Stop the Traffik; Stop UK; Unseen UK;
Unchosen; and UN
Global Initiative to Fight Human Trafficking (GIFT), who were designated
`official supporting
body'. The latter's involvement included an extended Twitter interview
with the librettist
(http://tinyurl.com/oavdpja).The
organisation provided `How to Respond' packs that were
distributed at the Liverpool première and they also helped with PR. Purple
Teardrop had an
information stall in the foyer at the RNCM performance, and were supported
by volunteers
from Soroptomist International, which also endorsed the opera. A
spokesperson from Purple
Teardrop reported that for them, being `partners' of the opera helped them
`extend the public's
awareness of human trafficking and its victims to both organisations'
followers and supporters', and
they used Twitter, Facebook and their own website to promote their
partnership. Following the
second performance of the opera, a member of the audience blogged: "I saw
this performance
last night at the RNCM. It was an incredibly powerful and moving piece ...
This thought-provoking
opera deserves a much wider platform as it demonstrates how modern opera
can,
and should be used." A short film of rehearsals of Anya 17 had had
700 views on YouTube by
31 July 2013. The two performances were seen by live audiences totalling
632 people, with a
further 812 viewings of a YouTube `showreel' (http://tinyurl.com/pjjplk3)
by 31 July 2013.

Anya17 was positively reviewed in the Sunday Times and
subsequently won 'Best Stage or
Film Production Dealing with Human Trafficking, 2012', presented by John
Bercow, MP at the
Speaker's House on 17 October 2012 in the presence of British MPs,
parliamentarians and
former ministers from across the EU, as well as journalists, police and
border agency staff, and
NGOs.

Among those who attended the first performance was the Chairman of the
Friendship
Foundation (UK-Romania). The Foundation is active in increasing public
awareness of human
trafficking, seeing it as vital to changing policy: "that's how
governments get cajoled into
making laws". The Foundation immediately saw the potential of taking Anya17
to Romania and
presenting it to policy makers and campaigning organisations as an
innovative way of
promoting a strong message from a `receiving' country such as the UK to a
`source' country
such as Romania. A successful application for funding was made to Arts
Council England for
£5k a further award of £1,860 from the RNCM in June 2013, so that a
performance of Anya17
could be part of the Third International Symposium on Human Trafficking in
Arad, Romania, on
17 October 2013.

Immediately following the 2012 première, two international opera
companies became aware of
the work and decided during the course of their planning for the 2013-14
seasons during
summer 2012, to stage the opera. Arrangements were made for the first
fully-staged run, at the
Stadttheater, Meiningen, Germany (November-December, 2013), and for the US
première at
Opera Parallèle in San Francisco (June, 2014). The Executive Director of
Opera Parallèle, Tod
Brody, describes how `the opera company's first focus is the artistic
quality of the work, but the
power of art to bring awareness, and to change minds, is something that's
of great interest and
concern to us'. In preparation for the production, they assembled a
Community Taskforce of
organisations, including the SAGE project (www.sagesf.org),
whose `mission is to improve the
lives of persons who have experienced or are at risk of sexual
exploitation, human trafficking,
violence and other forms of trauma'. They are working with the German
consulate in San
Francisco to organise a reception with celebrity speakers, including local
political figures to
enlist support for the cause, and for the Anya17 performances'.
Talks began with David
Pountney at Welsh National Opera in January 2013 about possible
performances there in
2014/15 and these are now well-advanced.

Anya 17 Librettist (see website: http://www.anya17.co.uk/index.htm)
— Initiated contacts with various organisations and policy-makers
during research
phase; commissioned web-site and is a regular blogger about Anya 17

Music Director, Südthüringisches Staatstheater, Meiningen, Germany
— In April 2012 recommended the opera be included in the
Stadttheater's 2013-14
season